What We’re Reading 3/16/10

Mar 16th, 2010 10:58 AM UTC
By Robyn Mitchell

The Guardian: Time to talk dirty
Guardian blogger, Sarah Boseley, highlights a new report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, which says that “the world is on track to meet or even exceed the drinking-water target,” as part of the Millennium Development Goals. According to the 2010 Update Report, 87 percent of the world’s population – around 5.9 billion people – have safe drinking water. However, while access to drinking water has improved, the report found that sanitation is “a long way off target still.” Boseley emphasizes the shocking statistic that “unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene claim the lives of an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five each year,” maintaining that “It may not be as big a conversational issue as AIDS or malaria, but it sure matters, and this one is not just amenable to healthcare improvements. It needs poverty reduction and education – the basic stuff of development – just as much.”

The Huffington Post: How Long Does It Take To Buy a Life-Saving Vaccine? (Op-Ed)
Dr. Orin Levine of Johns Hopkins University emphasizes a pledge made by former Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr, JW Lee, in which he challenged the international community to work together to make the vaccine for pneumococcal disease – one of the largest killers of children in Africa – available to a wider population. Five years after this challenge was posed, Levine analyzes how far the global health community has come, maintaining that while progress has certainly been made, “procurement challenges and differences on pricing policies continue to vex our efforts to get vaccines to the world’s neediest children.” Said Levine, “Living up to the challenge set out five years ago by Dr. Lee requires that the leadership in global health and vaccines make it a 2010 priority to resolve these issues. The children of these countries and the many stakeholders doing their part deserve nothing less.”

Miami Herald: Head goes here (Op-Ed)
Will Bennett, a former Air Force technical sergeant and active ONE member, argues that it is imperative that Congress support smart U.S. development and global poverty-fighting efforts as a key part of a sound national security strategy. Having served in active combat zones, Bennett recalls experiencing firsthand the “importance of foreign aid to our national security,” arguing that maintaining U.S. investments helps to “make the American public safer, make our world more stable and help prevent vulnerable regions around the world from descending into strife or violence.” Said Bennett, “Effective development, working hand-in-hand with accountable leadership and local communities in places like sub-Saharan Africa works to stabilize volatile areas and reduce the risk of regions becoming a security liability for the United States. Foreign development aid is critical to our national security strategy and must continue to be funded.”

The New York Times: A Different Kind of Aid: Hand Out Money (Op-Ed)
Journalist Floyd Whaley highlights an experimental aid study that Oxfam conducted in 2006 in which they gave one-time cash grants to 550 poor households on the coast of Vietnam. Oxfam’s reviews of the program found that families had used the money to improve their household food security and overall income, with many investing in cows that generate long-term revenue for the family. According to the study, school dropout rates decreased, and gender equity in the village improved, with women sharing control of the money. Critics of such direct cash payments, however, say they don’t affect the structural causes of poverty, such as deficiencies in education and infrastructure necessary to generate job-creating investments. Said Whaley, “It’s unlikely that the billions of dollars in development aid that is spent annually will ever be turned over to the poor without conditions, but the Oxfam program deserves a closer look by traditional development organizations.”

Reuters: U.S. presses India on Doha trade talks
A top U.S. official on Monday urged India and other large emerging economies to rescue the eight-year-old Doha round of world trade talks by making better offers to open their markets to American goods. The talks aim to help poor countries prosper through trade, but, according to Reuters, the United States complains current proposals require it to make politically painful cuts in agricultural subsidies and manufacturing tariffs without getting substantial new export opportunities in return. Last year, Obama, India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders of the Group of 20 countries set a goal of finishing the Doha round by the end of 2010, which Reuters maintains requires a major breakthrough if the deadline is going to be made. Said Michael Froman, deputy White House national security adviser, “The question on the table is whether India, as well as the other major emerging markets, will do what it takes to achieve the greater level of ambition that is necessary to make the Doha agreement feasible.”

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